The BBC could turn to Newsnight's former editor Peter Barron to end its four-month search for a new editor of the beleaguered BBC2 news programme.

There is intense speculation among Newsnight insiders that Barron, currently Google's head of external relations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is being lined up to return five years after he left the show.

Newsnight has been without a full-time editor since Peter Rippon stepped aside at the height of the Savile scandal in October last year.

The BBC's recently appointed director general Tony Hall is taking a close interest in the appointment of a new editor and took the unusual step, for the corporation's editor-in-chief, of sitting on the board of executives interviewing candidates.

"I am involved in that process because it is a phenomenally important job," Hall told the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee. "I want real ambition in our current affairs output."

A number of people have been linked with the Newsnight job but no appointment has been announced despite the deadline for applications closing on 8 February.

Robbie Gibb, editor of the Daily and Sunday Politics, was an early front runner for the job, with John Mullin, ex-editor of the Independent on Sunday, and Chris Birkett, recently departed head of Sky News, also said to be among the candidates.

Barron was unavailable for comment.

It would be a sensational return for Barron who left the BBC in 2008 after four years editing Newsnight.

He previously worked as a producer and film-maker on the programme and was deputy editor of Channel 4 News and ITV's Tonight with Trevor McDonald.

But it remains to be seen whether the BBC could match the sort of salary Barron would command at Google, and whether he would be interested in returning to a job he did for four years.

Hall told MPs last week that Newsnight had not yet had its budget cut, as part of former director general Mark Thompson's £700m package of cost-cutting measures, Delivering Quality First, and could actually have its budget increased.

"What I want is to find, with news management, the right editor and then get that editor to come and produce the most compelling vision for what Newsnight can be going forward," Hall said.

"It's really important for the BBC to have a programme after the 10 O'Clock News which is reflective on the day and really adds something which others don't ... doing the sort of feature the Economist or New Yorker does.

"My challenge to the new editor and the team is how we produce that sort of journalism at 10.30pm on BBC2. Let's work that out, and whether that costs more, the same, or less."

The double scandal at Newsnight – the shelving of its Savile investigation in late 2011 followed by a report that mistakenly linked former Tory party treasurer Lord McAlpine to child abuse claims nearly a year later – led to speculation that the programme itself might be axed.

Hall's vote of support, including the possibility its budget will be increased, will be regarded as a huge vote of confidence in the future of the show.

He told MPs that the importance of current affairs was such that this had been reintroduced to James Harding's job title. Where his predecessor, Helen Boaden, was director or news – Harding will be director of news and current affairs when he joins the BBC in August.

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